


Bones Reds

by bomberqueen17



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen, Roller Derby, Skateboarding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-21
Updated: 2013-11-21
Packaged: 2018-01-02 05:29:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1053048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bomberqueen17/pseuds/bomberqueen17
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A new member of the science team learns about Atlantis's barter economy. </p>
<p>Entirely prompted by my sister's skate-rat boyfriend helping me get the bearings out of my first set of rollerskate wheels way back in the Dark Ages when I first joined my local roller derby league. I still use his tip about using the skate axle to press new bearings in, every time. Eight years and I still don't have a decent bearing press... <br/>Wonder if there are any rollergirls in the Pegasus Galaxy?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bones Reds

“You’re fulla shit, McKay,” John said happily, taking a bite of the almost-apple in his hand and chewing noisily because he knew it was annoying. 

Rodney reacted predictably, setting off on a great, somewhat-shrill, rapid-fire rant about the merits of the continuously-variable transmission in an automobile over a standard transmission. John didn’t give a fuck, but he’d wound Rodney up enough that he could enjoy the show, so he waited a moment, said, “But the Batmobile’s totally a stick shift,” and watched Rodney spin off into near-incoherence. 

Out of the corner of his eye he caught the amused grin of a young woman, vaguely familiar, one of the new scientists he thought, but she was in civvies, off-duty, and was— John paused, mentally rewound, and stepped backward a few paces. She was using a bearing puller to yank bearings out of wheels, though they didn’t look like skateboard wheels; she had one stuck tight and had it on the floor and was prying at it as hard as she could. 

Next to her hand was a brand new box of Bones China Reds, still in the plastic. 

John pointed at it. “I— name your price for that box of bearings.” 

She blinked at him. “What the hell do you need bearings for?” she asked, astonished, then added belatedly, “Sir.” 

“Skateboard,” he said. “I’ve had them on order and they haven’t come on the last two Daedalus trips. My last set’s so rusty they’re almost seized.”

She laughed. “Skateboard,” she said. “Of course. I shoulda figured.”

“Why?” he asked belatedly. “What the hell do you use ‘em for if not skateboarding?”

She held up the stuck wheel. “These look like skateboard wheels to you?”

Rodney had noticed that John wasn’t listening anymore, and backtracked. “No,” John said. “What the hell are those for?”

The woman reached into the duffle bag beside her and pulled out a— a rollerskate. The old-fashioned kind, with the wheels two by two on a front and rear axle. The skate boot looked modern, low-slung, black with two white stripes down the side, with bright rainbow laces and chunky beige natural-rubber toe stops. They also looked well-worn, battered as hell, as if someone did a lot of falling and sliding in them. 

“Rollerskates,” John said. He lit up. “I bet those are stupid fun in the hallways here.”

The woman grinned. “Shit yeah,” she said. 

He held out his hand. “Give that here,” he said. “I can get that bearing out.”

Rodney was audibly rolling his eyes. “Jeez,” he said. “I’ll be in my lab, Kirk.” He hesitated. “Wait, what the hell are you doing?”

John pried expertly at the stuck bearing and with a little grunt of effort, popped it out. He let it fly at Rodney, thwacking him in the leg. “Ow,” Rodney said, predictably, but picked the thing up where it skittered away. “Hey, what is this?”

“Skate bearing,” John said. He took it from Rodney and spun it, listening to the click and noting the rust around the edges. “Hm. You might be in as poor shape as me with these.”

“I have spares,” the woman said. “This box of bearings cost me $25. What’ll you give me for ‘em?”

“We don’t really do money here,” John said. “I mean, I’ll give you money, but I haven’t had access to my checking account in like four years. They really don’t take American Express out here. Atlantis kinda operates on a barter economy.” He waved the bearing. “These are impossible to come by, so the price is higher. Shit you can get locally, not worth as much. But there’s not a single ball-bearing factory in the entire galaxy, that I’ve been able to discover.”

“There’s one on P42-7G7,” Rodney said. He took the bearing back. “But I don’t know where you’d get a housing like this.”

“Could you make one?” John asked. 

Rodney snorted. “Probably,” he said, “if I had nothing better to do, but honestly, what are the odds?”

John nodded resignedly, and turned back to the woman. “So,” he said. “Most trade around here is conducted in booze, chocolate, coffee, snack cakes, and esoteric pornography. Those of us on away teams have the advantage of sometimes being able to pick up pretty cool local shit to barter with. At the price of, y’understand, getting shot at kind of a lot. But I personally have a pretty decent stockpile of Beltaran ceramics, Minarin wool goods, Athosian rus wine, and these pretty jewel things they make on this little planet we refer to as Mirkwood, cuz of the spiders.”

“Oh God the spiders,” Rodney said, and shivered eloquently. “Wait, you have rus wine and you’re holding out on me?”

“C’mon, McKay,” John said, “you’re the king of holding out on me. You have like fifteen pounds of hoarded chocolate.”

“And more esoteric pornography than you can shake a stick at,” Rodney said. “Your point?”

“Rodney McKay, Porn King,” John said to the woman, gesturing grandly. “This is what he chooses to brag about.”

The woman eyed Rodney, who blustered indignantly for a second before pausing and eyeing her back. “You interested?” Rodney asked. 

She gave him a narrow-eyed speculative look. “Probably not yet,” she said. “I am fresh from the land of unrestricted Internet access. And I brought as much chocolate as I could carry, because this isn’t the first I’ve heard about Atlantis’s economy. But we may have to talk, later, when I’m sick of everything I brought.” 

“Ha,” Rodney said triumphantly, turning to Sheppard. “And you were trying to bribe her with _pottery._ ”

John snorted in disgust. “I was trying not to get hit with sexual harassment charges,” he said. 

“Please,” the woman said, “I’m a mechanical engineer, offering me porn doesn’t even _register_.” She shoved herself to her feet. “Colonel, I will be in touch with you about skate bearings once I’ve had a chance to inventory my supplies.”


End file.
